Question about Lock DPS

Hey guys, my guild just got to 10 man Council the other night and really struggled to kill Sul before he empowered despite lusting off start and focusing him as much as possible. When I looked at the logs one of our locks was pretty low, doing anywhere between 50-70k DPS over our 12 attempts. I don't think it's gear, he has 499 gear score. Before I confront him I was hoping to get the opinion of someone who knows far more than I do about Warlocks or DPS in general (I played Disc priest).

Our strat was to simply lust, burn Sul then switch to Frost to and break his empowerment, back to Sul until ~50 energy or so on Kaz ect. Our Monk, Shaman and Mage where in charge of killing Loa Spirits so i don't think that should have hurt his DPS. Any advice would be greatly appreciated so I can either get off his back or bring him some constructive criticism rather than just simply telling him to improve.

I'm not yet able to post links but our logs are available. Guild name Long Story Short, US-Server
Locks name is "Deadlockk"

Hey guys, my guild just got to 10 man Council the other night and really struggled to kill Sul before he empowered despite lusting off start and focusing him as much as possible. When I looked at the logs one of our locks was pretty low, doing anywhere between 50-70k DPS over our 12 attempts. I don't think it's gear, he has 499 gear score. Before I confront him I was hoping to get the opinion of someone who knows far more than I do about Warlocks or DPS in general (I played Disc priest).

Our strat was to simply lust, burn Sul then switch to Frost to and break his empowerment, back to Sul until ~50 energy or so on Kaz ect. Our Monk, Shaman and Mage where in charge of killing Loa Spirits so i don't think that should have hurt his DPS. Any advice would be greatly appreciated so I can either get off his back or bring him some constructive criticism rather than just simply telling him to improve.

I'm not yet able to post links but our logs are available. Guild name Long Story Short, US-Server
Locks name is "Deadlockk"

We overgear this boss alot, so take my words with a grain of salt.

But Locks (Assuming Aff/Demo) should just spread dots to all targets, and do max dps, not focusing on kill one at a time. And indeed, Single Target dps of 50-70k is low, for his ilvl - assuming its short into the fight (if you haven't got past sul yet). I am not sure Destruction should be gemming int, but Ive seen others doing it - So I might be off in that department. Hes reforging to crit (as destruction); where he should be going for haste with Sup.

What I do is; at the start use all the shards to dot up all the targets, then go back on sul you usually have gained a shard by then so Haunt then nuke sul untill dark soul is over, after that its just a matter of maintaining the Dots, use spare shards on haunt on the current nuke target. Easily reach 140k in ilvl 500 gear

We are a caster heavy group so we kind of lack the constant cleave dmg melee normally provides.

What my guild does is to have 1 or 2 (second dps is is on empowered only if needed) on the empowered and the rest on Sul. We do however all change targets when troll that jumps constantly gets the empower because of his reflect.

However since 25% HP is allot for a single person I do help out with the empowered even if I'm not on empowered duty, by using havoc on cooldown.

Originally Posted by HemmerN

What I do is; at the start use all the shards to dot up all the targets, then go back on sul you usually have gained a shard by then so Haunt then nuke sul untill dark soul is over, after that its just a matter of maintaining the Dots, use spare shards on haunt on the current nuke target. Easily reach 140k in ilvl 500 gear

Sorry but this is just meter padding. You aren't really doing useful dps by attacking all of the trolls, you may get a extra shard but from corruption ticks but that's clearly not your goal.

Having Sul dead before he gets his buff is more important then anything else (at least on normal) because once you get the first troll down the fight itself will be much easier (less shit going on). But since your attacking mobs that don't have the empowered your not really contributing to the fast kill and I would even go as far as to say that your holding back the raid even.

To make it clear, dps on a non empowered troll won't make the difference between a kill and a wipe. You're dps may be higher but you will be holding back the raid because you aren't killing the priority target faster (your killing the trolls slower even).

He should be going for Mastery stacking, especially if he is offpseccing Affliction for raiding. That aside, it's rather minor thing. What matters is that he has really shitty Rain of Fire uptime. It's slight dps gain even on one target, and you should have always 2-3 targets available on this fight which gives tons of embers. Destro is perfect spec to deal with Loa, slow with conflag, stun with shadowfury, nuke with CB, finish + replenish embers via SB, though... he is already struggling. And... by Celestia, he have ONE use of Havoc during WHOLE raid, this is one of most crucial abilities of Destruction. Have him at the very least have focus macro for it to target Sul, but you can get way more of of that when you enter execute phase on any of target (Havoc empowered target, triple shadowburn Sul).

since you did not post a link to your logs, and i do not care about searching i can only give some general hints.
Affli/Demo- Multidot everything (can´t say more about those two)
Destro:
Gemming int is perfectly fine (haste is only useful if you reach teh 11k breakpoint and you have RPPM trinkets)
499 ilvl... 110k-120k dps should be possible, 150k if played very well
GoSup Imp with haste/crit reforge (imp autodispells teh sandpool root very helpful)
GoSac (sac imp) mastery reforge
T15 Soul Leech ( so you do not mind the roll damage at all)
T90 talent should be MF (KJC if he is really lazy/ total noob)

Rain of Fire up as much as possible (hitting 2-4 targets always!)
Immolate up on all 4 targets as much as possible
Havoc on cd (cleave CB on the spirit) (havoc 25sec cd, spirit 30sec cd
CB a lot
Havoc +3x SB if something is <20%

Burn Sul at start with single target burst rote (do not mess asound with multidotting all 4 and CoE all 4 while your prepot goes to waste)
I guess hero at start fits the burst strat.
DS:I on cooldown
Fel Flame/Conflagrate if moving out of Kazra'jin´s stun move (obvious but people seem to forget about it due to KJC all the time)

do not stand in the middle (you will need to mave everytime when Kazra'jin rolls around and you have to spin around for multidotting...hurts the dps a lot)
and as always play ABC (always be casting)

Edit: checked the log now
funny to see the improvements he made, from using no Chaos Bolt but FnB instead to having at least more CB damage than incinerate, still shitty immolate multidotting
no havocs...
get jade spirit for weapon! is really cheap now
2 locks, try to get the targets for CoE straight! 2 for everyone
Observer is NOT the best pet only because it is written in every shitty guide and simcraft sims him 0,1% better than the other pets in BIS gear on patchwerk fights. Get Imp on this fight and help out the healers with dispelling the rooting.
give this info to both of them, Warlock should be Top1 and 2 in recount all the time^^

Just looking at logs real quick, Eierdotter and Nivrax covered most but a few pointers

- He should be shadowburning the loa spirit for a free ember every 30 secs
- Needs to keep RoF up all the time (uptime was 11.4%, or 334 secs. You were in combat for probably close to 30 mins)
- His incinerate to conflag ratio is 2.91:1 which is probably pretty accurate assuming he dies with some stacks up.
- Curse of Elements had 93.9% up time, which is good assuming that he is keeping it on targets the rogue is not.
- His immolate uptime was 63.9%. On a fight that has 4 targets up for almost all of your attempts, this is really low.
- He used 23 Sacrificial Pacts and only used a health stone 3 times. Both could have more use, though Sac Pac depends on how many times you get frostbite/sand trapped. He should for sure be using it when kazra'jin (rolling guy) becomes empowered. I think he got Biting Cold 14 times.
- Absolutely no havoc's used. He should be cleaving onto Kazra'jin, assuming that he is your 2nd target.

- I just happened to look at you're longest attempt, number 5.
- His uptime on Rain of Fire was 13.4%. He only used it 8 times.
-

We are a caster heavy group so we kind of lack the constant cleave dmg melee normally provides.

What my guild does is to have 1 or 2 (second dps is is on empowered only if needed) on the empowered and the rest on Sul. We do however all change targets when troll that jumps constantly gets the empower because of his reflect.

However since 25% HP is allot for a single person I do help out with the empowered even if I'm not on empowered duty, by using havoc on cooldown.

Sorry but this is just meter padding. You aren't really doing useful dps by attacking all of the trolls, you may get a extra shard but from corruption ticks but that's clearly not your goal.

Having Sul dead before he gets his buff is more important then anything else (at least on normal) because once you get the first troll down the fight itself will be much easier (less shit going on). But since your attacking mobs that don't have the empowered your not really contributing to the fast kill and I would even go as far as to say that your holding back the raid even.

To make it clear, dps on a non empowered troll won't make the difference between a kill and a wipe. You're dps may be higher but you will be holding back the raid because you aren't killing the priority target faster (your killing the trolls slower even).

All the bosses have to die so every dps u make on this fight is useful dps, Megaera is different story where heads will heal up when one is killed. Bosses doesnt heal here so why shouldnt he multidot if it increases his dps?

If you can actually kill the empowered guy before he gets 100 energy, then yea the warlock should be multi dotting as affliction. As destro, he should focus Sul, havoc onto adds or empowered add. I wouldn't call affliction dots padding if its making the fight shorter and no boss is getting 100 energy.

Sorry but this is just meter padding. You aren't really doing useful dps by attacking all of the trolls, you may get a extra shard but from corruption ticks but that's clearly not your goal.

Having Sul dead before he gets his buff is more important then anything else (at least on normal) because once you get the first troll down the fight itself will be much easier (less shit going on). But since your attacking mobs that don't have the empowered your not really contributing to the fast kill and I would even go as far as to say that your holding back the raid even.

To make it clear, dps on a non empowered troll won't make the difference between a kill and a wipe. You're dps may be higher but you will be holding back the raid because you aren't killing the priority target faster (your killing the trolls slower even).

They have to all die at some point. Multi-dotting reduces the total number of possessions in the fight, which in turn reduces the amount of damage the raid is taking toward the end of the fight.

As for helping the OP, honestly, just have him go Affliction on this one fight. This is the one fight in ToT that Destruction is relatively shitty on.

50-70k dps was what warlocks were expected to be doing in 465-475 gear. He should easily be doing 100k in that gear.

I assume you're talking normal mode.
Destruction can do reasonable damage on all fights, but alot less than Affliction or Demonology on this one in particular. That doesn't make it bad though, it's just worse than Demo and Affliction.
If your lock gets Mannoroth's Fury and puts Rain of Fire over as many targets as he can, he can cast alot of Chaos Bolts (in combination with mastery reforging + Grimoire of Sacrifice). That way he'll deal alot of damage to the main target. Tbh 50-70k is what I'd expect to see if I went Demo and sent my pet in there while I auto-wand.

It sounds like your warlock is incredibad and if I were you I would get a random pug from tradechat to replace him.

Sorry but this is just meter padding. You aren't really doing useful dps by attacking all of the trolls, you may get a extra shard but from corruption ticks but that's clearly not your goal.

It's not meter padding at all. They don't have shared health pools. All damage is good damage. Reapplying dots takes 3 GCDs and frankly just keeping 2 melee + tank on Sul should be plenty to kill him before he gets empowered, assuming a mini burn on him at the start from everyone.

It's not meter padding at all. They don't have shared health pools. All damage is good damage. Reapplying dots takes 3 GCDs and frankly just keeping 2 melee + tank on Sul should be plenty to kill him before he gets empowered, assuming a mini burn on him at the start from everyone.

It IS meter padding if they have all of their raid on him and he still empowers, meaning the damage on him (strictly him) is the issue. Under normal circumstances, I would advice multidotting too. But since they're wiping due to not being able to kill Sul before he empowers, multidotting will obviously be meaningless padding.